Nis­san turns over a new Leaf

THE adage that a leaf doesn’t fall too far from the tree has been fol­lowed by Nis­san.

Ready for its de­but at this month’s Geneva mo­tor show, the Nis­san Es­flow con­cept coupe is based on the tech­nol­ogy of Nis­san’s global plug-in elec­tric hatch­back, the Leaf.

It is the sec­ond all-elec­tric car in the bud­ding ‘‘Zero Emis­sion’’ fam­ily that in­cludes the Leaf and is ex­pected to quickly ex­pand into com­mer­cial vans un­der the Nis­san and Re­nault name­plates.

‘‘Own­ing an eco­log­i­cally sound car does not have to come at the ex­pense of driv­ing en­joy­ment,’’ Nis­san says. The two-seat Es­flow demon­strates the flex­i­bil­ity — in de­sign and driv­e­train lay­out— of elec­tric propul­sion. It uses all the driv­e­train tech­nol­ogy al­ready em­ployed by Nis­san in the Leaf hatch — now rolling out sales around the world— and is heav­ily hinted as be­ing a pro­duc­tion-vi­able car.

The Es­flow, a sports car de­signed from the out­set as a zero emis­sion ve­hi­cle, has two elec­tric mo­tors— each turn­ing a rear wheel to elim­i­nate a dif­fer­en­tial and drive shafts. Nis­san claims a range of up to 240km and a 0-100km/h sprint of less than five sec­onds.

The Nis­san Es­flow which will be de­but at the Geneva mo­tor show this month